Departures

‘Departures’ takes you on beautiful trip to death

Masahiro Motoki (left) and Tsutomu Yamazaki in “Departures.”

Beautiful. Lyrical. Mystifying.
I was simply blown over by the creativity and sensitivity of “Departures.”
If you think this is a travel film, well, it isn't. But don't feel bad. So did the main character.
Daigo Kobayashi, played by Masahiro Motoki, is a cellist in an orchestra. He admits he's not particularly good, but buys an expensive cello the pros would envy. Unfortunately, the concert hall is more than half empty and the orchestra owner announces to the troupe, “The orchestra is dissolved.”
Suddenly Kobayashi has to pay off an expensive instrument and is out of work. His wife, played by Ryoko Hirosue, can support them both, but not the cello.
So Kobayashi decides to move back to the cluttered old home where they can live for free. His mother is dead, his father left home years ago.
But he still needs work and finds and sees an advertisement for someone who can handle “departures.”
So he goes for an interview and the kindly business owner, played by Tsutomu Yamazaki, offers him a job and an obscene amount of money, the resume left unlooked at.
Hmmm, lots of money to work in travel? No. The advertisement had a misprint. It's not “departures,” it's “departed.”
It seems in Japan, where this movie takes place, people used to prepare their relatives' bodies for burial. It was a ceremonial process of washing the deceased and and setting the relative up for burial.
But today, people in Japan hire the work out. This would be Kobayashi's new job.
Well, the first call doesn't go real well. The deceased is an elderly woman found three weeks after she died. Kobayashi loses his lunch and desire to work, but his boss feeds him cash and tell s him to take the rest of the day off.
The Kobayashi character's mother recently died, but his father left them when he was little. In his mind, his father's face is just a blur.
We are introduced to the process of getting the body ready for burial with Kobayashi's boss. The family sits while the body is washed, clothing is rearranged, covers are moved about. It is part religious, it is part haunting ceremony, it is part magic trick.
Slowly, Kobayashi learns the trade. He learns what this final act means to the families of the deceased, whether an elderly grandmother or a young child.
It's a film that will make you cry, it will make you pensive about this world we live in.
The film ends in a beautiful moment in which Kobayashi deals with his father.
And as if a movie can't be more beautiful and uplifting, Kobayashi spends his off time playing his cello, getting better at this trade as his sensitivity grows.
This is a film that simply could not be made in the United States. The film has gotten good word of mouth and is worth your undivided attention. Fortunately, if you have a Netflix account, you can stream this film at your leisure.
It's a film that will live on with you, long after you've forgotten most others.
Access hundreds of Viper movie reviews at videoviper.blogspot.com. Read Lebzelter’s general interest columns at bobleb.blogspot.com.

DEPARTURES • Directed by Yojiro Takita, written by Kundo Koyama • Runtime: 130 minutes • Rated PG-13 for thematic material • 5 stars out of 5

Lassie Come Home

Technicolor, a great dog and Liz Taylor, too

MGM
A YOUNG Elizabeth Taylor with Nigel Bruce in “Lassie Come Home.”

Oh man did Lassie have a time of it in the 1943 family film “Lassie Come Home.”
Filmed in Technicolor, child star Roddy McDowall plays Joe Carraclough, a poor boy growing up in England. But he is rich in that he has the best and smartest collie ever, Lassie, played by Pal.
Pal, by the way, was 3 when he made this movie and played Lassie again two years later in “Son of Lassie.” All Lassies in subsequent films and TV programs are descendants of Pal, who died at 17 in 1958.
The family needs money so dad Sam, played by Donald Crisp, sells the dog to the rich Duke of Rudling, played by Nigel Bruce, best known as Dr. Watson in a series of Sherlock Holmes films.
The duke keeps his pooches in outdoor kennels offering substandard food and an unfeeling keeper.
What is really sad is when young Joe gets out of school and Lassie isn’t under the tree waiting for him. It is his mother, played by Elsa Lanchester, best known as the bride of Frankenstein, who lays out the cold truth. The family is destitute and needs the cash from selling the collie.
Meanwhile, Lassie won’t eat, loses weight and learns to escape by digging under the fence. Joe is overjoyed to see Lassie waiting at school, but of course she (played by a he) must go back to the duke’s home.
This time Lassie escapes by jumping over the fence. Pal is a tremendous actor. Kudos to his trainer! In one scene, Lassie gets back, runs and misses jumping over the fence. He (she) tries again, narrowly missing freedom. The third jump is half-hearted and doesn’t work. All seems lost. But the next jump and the dog is over!
Now I would think it is one thing to teach a dog to jump a fence, but to train it to try and fail three times and succeed on the fourth, all shot in one take, is pretty remarkable.
Of course, a malnourished Lassie must go back to Dr. Watson, er, the duke.
Oh, and the duke has a pretty young niece, who just happens to be Elizabeth Taylor. Be warned, Taylor has a minor role in the film.
Soon the duke and Elizabeth are off to Scotland with Lassie, who gets away again and heads off hundreds of miles to England and her family.
And a nail-biting adventure she has. She is shot, she nearly drowns, she is malnourished, she jumps from the second floor of a big building and is hurt.
Lots of suspense, lots of action. Let me tell you, you will be in there rooting for Lassie!
And you will have a bit of a tear in your eye at the film’s conclusion.
This is a fine family film, although it may prove too much for very young children. It’s best for those maybe 8 or over.
You can’t beat a well-done animal film, especially when the animal is the focus of the film.
So watch it with your family. Will Lassie make it back to her family and will she be able to stay?
As a sidenote, I watched the film on DVD. While it was done in a rich Technicolor, the movie looked worn and had dropouts and color splotches. This would be a great candidate for film restoration and ultimately a Blu-Ray version.
Just a thought.


LASSIE COME HOME • Directed by Fred M. Wilcox • Written by Huog Butler and Eric Knight • Runtime: 89 minutes • Not rated but suitable for all but the very young • 4 stars out of 5

I Am Love

‘I Am Love’ not heavy on plot

MARISA BERENSON and Alba Rohrwackher in “I Am Love.”

After watching the Italian film “I Am Love,” my reaction was, what the heck was this about?
It deals with a rich family, made wealthy because it owns textile industries.
The film seemingly drops into a point in the lives of these characters. We go along for the narrative. Meet the auxiliary characters. Watch them interact. Some die. Some have sex.
Then it’s over.
Tilda Swinton is from Russia and her character marries into a family of rich aristocrats.
She seems a bit uncomfortable helping supervise the birthday party for the family patriarch and keen business head, Edoardo, played by Gabriele Ferzetti.
Director Luca Guadagnino has a nice way of setting up scenes, building suspense through cutaway shots and closeups and swelling music.
We see early on what an opulent family this is. The color and pageantry could belong to an era 100 years ago, rather than the start of the new millennium.
The Swinton character feels strangely apart from the rest of the family, as if she doesn’t totally belong and will never belong.
The old man makes a grand announcement during his birthday dinner. He is retiring, which we learn is a good thing because he will soon be dead.
He flatters his son, played by Pippo Delbono, stating he is everything a father could hope for.
But the old man tosses in a ringer, he announces his son will operate the business only with the assistance of his grandson, played by Flavio Parenti.
As stated, this could have been a turn of the 19-century tale rather than 20th, with the grand dinners and fancy clothing and men taking command.
This is a family well established and cloaked in tradition.
Swinton goes to visit her daughter in another community and spots the chief who handled the party, played by Edoardo Gabbrellini. She follows him and — you guessed it — has sex with him.
Later she finds out her daughter, played by Alba Rohrwacher, is a lesbian. She really doesn’t react as a mother, but comments on how pretty the woman is.
And so it goes. Little revelations. Different well-staged scenes. But nothing I would call an interesting or compelling plot.
Little conflict until late in the film when the son unfortunately slips and falls.
It’s not actually a drawing-room drama. It’s a film in search of meaning and a beefed-up storyline.
Frankly, I was underwhelmed by “I Am Love.” It didn’t love it.

I AM LOVE • Directed and written by Luca Guadagnino • Runtime: 120 minutes • Rated R for sexuality and nudity • 1 star out of 5

Mrs. Miniver

‘Mrs. Miniver’ looks at wartime England
GREER GARSON and Walter Pidgeon in “Mrs. Miniver.”

“Mrs. Miniver” is an astonishly good picture about England early in World War II.
First off, it came out in 1942, when the bombings of London by the Nazis were still going on.
Greer Garson is a middle-aged Mrs. Miniver, looking lovely and married to Walter Pidgeon. They are described as middle class.
Early on, we learn the entire community participates in a competition to determine who grows the best rose. Mrs. Miniver is so respected, she is asked if it is OK to name a rose in the competition after her.
The Minivers have a super polite, handsome son, Vin, played by Richard Wilcoxon.
While described as middle class, they do, of course, have a maid and dress like they are going to the opera at all times.
Young Vin falls for highbrow Carol Beldon, played by Teresa Wright. Her grandmother, Lady Beldon, played by Dame May Whitty, is the upper crust of the community. She’s not sure if her grandmother should set sail as a Miniver. She might come up with something better.
Vin goes off to fight in the war, leaving his love at home, knowing their relationship could be interrupted at any point by death.
In one of the best scenes in the picture, the Minivers are hunkered down in the basement because of threat of an air raid.
Often they are false alarms. But just in case, they go to their sanctuary, complete with beds for the children and canned food and coffee.
The kids sleep while Mr. Miniver puffs on his pipe in the close quarters, wearing his suit and tie. Fortunately, this was before the time when smoking was dangerous.
The scene is gripping and realistic. You hear the whistle of the bombs as they are dropped from the planes and grimace while waiting for the loads to explode.
The plaster falls. The children scream. I jump. And suddenly, the scene switches to a train station, where young Vin is coming home on leave.
Your immediate reaction, why switch the scene when we don’t know the outcome of their home?
But when the family arrives home we get the answer. There are gaping holes in the roof and walls, but the family nonchalantly continues to live in the wrecked abode like everything is normal.
There’s a heartfelt scene between Garson’s Miniver and new wife Wright. Yes, they are in love. But the Wright character tells mom-in-law she’s smart enough at age 18 to know the war makes it possible that one of them may not survive. Let’s just say it is a harbinger of things to come.
William Wyler won an Oscar for best director. Garson was nominated for best actress and Wright for best supporting actress. It was also nominated for best picture.
It is a very human film with very real characters and high drama. At times you will gasp.
It is a great film about war, survival and determination. Oh yes, and a community than in the depths of rubble and destruction, still has time to stop and smell the flowers.

MRS. MINIVER
• Directed by William Wyler
• Written by Arthur Whimpers and George Forestall
• Runtime: 134 minutes
• Not rated but intense war scenes
• 4 stars out of 5

Dinner Game

‘Dinner Game’ filled with zany characters

Jacque Villeret is the idiot in "The Dinner Game."

“The Dinner Game” could almost be a done as a stage play, an exceptionally funny stage play.
This is a zany film stuffed with bizarre characters and unusual situations. In the 1930s, it could be one of those madcap films with Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn and directed by George Cukor.
But this film is written and directed by Francis Veber, the screenwriter behind the hilarious classic “La Cage Au Folles.”
This is a 1998 French film which spawned a recent American remake, “Dinner for Schmucks.”
The premise is simple. Rich executives who are full of themselves schedule weekly dinners. Each is supposed to bring an idiot, an eccentric weirdo whom they can pretend to be interested in but they are really making fun of.
For instance, there’s the man in full business suit who spends his afternoons in the park throwing boomerangs.
Then there’s Thierry Lhermitte, who plays a handsome, rich publisher, Pierre. He needs someone to take to this dinner. A friend meets Francois, played by Jacque Villeret, a short, chunky accountant who copes with being abandoned by his wife years ago by recreating famous structures with matchsticks.
So bizarre and boring is Francois, he appears to be the perfect idiot for the dinner.
He is working for the equivalent of the French Internal Revenue Service. When he gets invited to the dinner, he is told a book may come out of this. Cruel indeed.
So Francois is asked to stop at the Lhermitte character’s spacious apartment and they will be off to the dinner.
Unfortunately, Pierre has thrown out his back and his doctor prescribes bed rest, not dinner with idiots.
Pudgy Francois shows up and he is all of the idiot that Pierre could hope for. Unfortunately, Pierre is no shape to go anywhere. So he promises Francois they will go another time. Francois, who has already stumbled over Pierre and made his back worse, bids adieu but before he leaves, the phone rings. The answering machine gets the call. It is Pierre’s wife, stating he is going to leave him.
Francois, hoping to console poor Pierre, stays. In fact, a running joke in this film is that Francois frequently gets ready to exit, but something happens in the plot requiring him to stay.
Make no mistake, Francois is an idiot and hatches schemes but then messes up, making things worse. Pierre has a girlfriend as well as the estranged wife. His wife’s old lover shows up at the apartment, as does a tax agent.
Chaos and absolute hilarity ensues.
This film is an absolute hoot and I found myself laughing loudly in many situations.
You can’t take these characters seriously, but then, you can’t take the plot seriously at all.
I can’t vouch for the American remake, “Dinner for Schmucks,” which has Steve Carell as the idiot.
But the original “The Dinner Game” is a match you should play. You are guaranteed a good time.

THE DINNER GAME
• Directed and written by Francis Veber
• French with English subtitles
• Runtime: 80 minutes
• Rated PG-13
• 3 1/2 stars out of 4

Me and Orson Welles

Nostalgia drips from 30s-era Welles film

ZAC EFRON (left) and Christian McKay (right) as Orson Welles in “Me and Orson Welles.”

“Me and Orson Welles” just breathes nostalgia.
Zac Efron plays a young, idealistic actor named Richard Samuels who ditches high school to become a member of Orson Welles’ acting troupe at the Mercury Theatre.
This fledging but talented group is attempting to put on Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar.” The pay isn’t too good. Nothing. The workload is heavy.
But the cast senses a greatness in Welles and vie to be part of the troupe and perhaps carve their own slice of fame.
As backdrops, Adolph Hitler is taking over in Europe. David O. Selznik is making a film called “Gone With the Wind.”
Efron’s character hungers to be an actor and Welles demands perfection from the start. Everyone must know their lines immediately and must know absolute pronunciation and voice diction.
There can be no room for error.
Welles, played by Christian McKay, is the absolute monarch of the troupe. All women must submit to him if asked.
Cast members know they can never disagree with Welles. When one member does, it eventually ends in dismissal.
In real life, Welles was called the Boy Genius and his talent was prevalent. While in his 20s he acted and produced “Citizen Kane,” a thinly disguised biography of newspaper magnet William Randolph Hurst. The film ranks No. 1 on most lists of the greatest films of all time.
But this takes place a few years before.
Claire Danes is Sonja Jones, an actor in the troupe. While there are numerous relationships amongst the cast, nobody apparently can seduce the lovely Jones.
Until young Zac comes along. And what kid wants to go to high school when he can bed beautiful actresses and appear in productions with the future Boy Genius of the entertainment industry?
Efron does an exceptional job as the young, naive actor, learning his craft and about life.
And McKay certainly looks and sounds like Welles. He nails down that distinctive voice made famous the world over when his theater troupe put together “The War of the Worlds,” the radio play that had the world thinking we were being invaded by aliens.
The Welles in this film knows how to be stern and absolute, as well as gentle and flattering.
Efron’s character gets a cold slap of worldly reality at the end of the film
There are many side characters, from actors to a young, would-be author the Efron character meets.
Richard Linklater directed this film. His wide-ranging talents are responsible for such films at “A Scanner Darkly,” “Dazed and Confused” and “School of Rock.”
This film got little notice when it was released in December 2009. It wasn’t in 3-D and Optimus Prime wasn’t a character.
But that doesn’t mean it isn’t deserving of attention. In fact, why not watch it as a double feature with “Citizen Kane?” Now that’s a good idea.

ME AND ORSON WELLES
• Directed by Richard Linklater
• Screenplay by Holly Gent and Vincent Palmo from a novel by Robert Kaplow
• Rated PG-13 for sexual references and smoking
• Runtime: 114 minutes
• 3 1/2 stars out of 4

Kick-Ass

‘Kick-Ass’ bloody fun, takes chances

AARON JOHNSON is "Kick-Ass."

I had a bit of a disagreement with a female co-worker.
She didn’t care for “Kick-Ass,” but her husband loved it.
I said I would be the tie breaker.
I found it a, well, kick-ass kind of film.
Sure it is a goofy movie, but it took a few chances with the story and characters that made it a little different and more engaging.
So here is the premise. What if people out in the world decided to use their talents to become crime fighters and wear costumes, just like in the comic books.
Certainly, you point out, there’s nobody from the distant planet Krypton who came to Earth with powers more powerful than mortal man, like Superman.
And nobody we know of has been bitten by a radioactive spider, creating Spider-Man.
But look at Bruce Wayne. He built himself up, trained his body and mind and became a superhero with no powers, Batman. Ollie Queen was able to use trick arrows to nab the bad guys as Green Arrow.
So what kid hasn’t dreamed at some point of being a superhero, whether with real super powers like Superman or just an athletic guy, like Batman?
Thus the appeal of “Kick-Ass.”
Dave Lizewski, played by Aaron Johnson, gets picked on at school and decides to become a super hero.
Now what should any self-respecting kid do first if he wants to battle the bad guys in costume garb? Why, build a Web site and get a fancy costume.
Trouble is, Dave doesn’t worry too much about the physical part. So when he tries to stop two guys from breaking into a car, he in his Kick-Ass costume and the baddies almost become incapacitated from laughter.
They also beat, kick and stab him.
So his first attempt at truth, justice and the American way ends up in a trip to the emergency room.
But Dave’s thoughts of being a super hero aren’t original.
Because Nicolas Cage has become the crimefighter Big Daddy, along with his ruthless 11-year-old daughter, played by Chloe Grace Moretz, who is Hit Girl.
They are battling a crime boss played by Mark Strong. With all of these super heroes showing up, the Strong character decides to use his son, played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse, as yet another super hero, Red Mist.
Now the only one in this sea of tights and capes who could be considered a super hero is Hit Girl. Sure she is only 11, but she can take out a room full of macho men in a blink of an eye.
She isn’t disturbed as she leaves a dozen bloody corpses in her wake.
There are some subplots. Somehow Dave captures the heart of the hot chick at school, even though she doesn’t know he is Kick-Ass.
There is no curbing of the violence in this film. When the crime boss captures the heroes, he shows their torture on TV. America watches as Kick-Ass gets his groin kicked to the point it is doubtful he will ever father children.
But don’t worry, he bounces back to battle the bad guys.
Big weapons, sharp knives, lots of blood. It’s been done before, but it works.
Now when I was a kid, there was a code for super heroes. You never killed anyone.
Not so in “Kick-Ass.” In many ways this could be called “Kill-Ass.”
Now I can enjoy an English drawing room drama where the most action is when the butler adjusts the Lord’s tie.
But the fast action, don’t-give-a-damn how bloody and politically incorrect it all becomes is appealing as well.
Give it a look and then maybe hang out at Dairy Mart, in case somebody tries to shoplift a carton of chip dip. Grab your cape and kick some ass.

KICK-ASS
• Directed by Matthew Vaughn
• Written by Jane Goldman, Vaughn and Mark
• Runtime: 117 minutes
• Rated R for violence, language
• 3 stars out of 4

I Served the King of England

‘King’ serves viewer well with lots of plots

IVAN BARNEY (far left) in “I Served the King of England.”

“I Served the King of England” has precious little to do with a king or England.
But there are many other topics, like love, sex, hate, violence, work, relationships, advancement.
This film from the Czech Republic opens with main character Jan Dite, played at this age by Oldrich Kaiser, being released from prison in 1963. Why he was there, we don’t know.
He breaths the air of freedom and promptly moves into a wooded area, living in a decrepit old cabin.
The film is a comedy, but also political, a drama, even a fantasy.
The story is told in flashbacks, with the Dite character played as a youngster by Ivan Barney.
Young and wide-eyed, he seems a bit dense at first, but he seems to find a way to get the jobs and positions he wants, as well as the women.
As an old man, who works to build a road of stone, he thinks back to his storied life.
He spends many years working in upscale hotels, restaurants and resorts.
He marvels at the head waiter who can balance several dishes while dancing and dodging through the crowd. But when the waiter does drop a plate, he goes completely undone and leaves the restaurant with a few inches of china rubble.
Dite becomes the head waiter.
But no matter what formal position he has, living and working with the rich and famous, something happens that makes him decide to leave each job.
Dite also has a certain amount of disdain for the rich. He enjoys throwing coins on the floor, just to watch the wealthy on their hands and knees scraping up the loose change.
Dite gets involved with a young lady who comes into one of his establishments who turns out to be a prostitute. They end up with a relationship that is beneficial for both. He learns what women want and ends the evening with rose pedals all over the young lass.
Eventually he meets a woman, played by Julia Jentsch, who is sympathetic to the new rulers of the country, the Nazis.
She is so fiercely loyal she goes off to fight in the war. Meanwhile, his hotel is turned into a sort of resort of young, beautiful Aryan girls who are trained to be breeders to continue the German race. The girls swim and bounce about in the nude all day in front of Dite, as if he isn’t there. But they run and hide when other males appear.
Eventually, his young bride re-appears. They decide to marry but Dite must show his sperm is of proper quality to impregnate an Aryan girl. There are some pretty hilarious antics here, including some involving girlie magazines and a sympathetic older lady.
After the marriage, wife wants to give Adolph another pure Aryan, so the two jump in the sack. But during sex, wife insists on having in full view a large Monty Pyhonesque head shot of Hitler.
Back from the war, the Jentsch character shows millions of dollars worth of stamps she gleamed from Jewish homes.
Now Dite is no fan of the Nazis but goes along with his wife and takes the stamps and runs, after the war, to open his own palatial hotel. Unfortunately, wife doesn’t live to see the remnants of her wealth.
And when Czechoslovakia goes Communist, well, let’s just say, easy come, easy go.
“I Served the King Of England” is trotted out in a leisurely pace and covers much ground over the span of the film.
We see greed, hatred, love, determination. It is both funny and horrific. At one point, Dite seems to be noncommittal to his wife’s love of the Nazis, but suddenly grabs the sandwich of one of the elite and starts running down the railroad tracks, trying to give it to emaciated Jewish prisoners being carted off to their deaths.
Like many foreign films, this is one of those pictures you won’t easily see being translated into an American film. If you are a student of history, or people, this is a great movie to watch.

I SERVED THE KING OF ENGLAND
• Directed by Jiri Menzel, written by Bohumil Hrabal and Menzel
• Rated R for content and nudity
• Runtime: 120 minutes
• 3 1/2 stars out of 4

The Invention of Lying

‘Lying’ premise solid, needs better plot

ROB LOWE (left) and Rick Gervais in “The Invention of Lying.”

Suppose we all lived in a world where everyone told the truth all of the time, the blunt truth.
Such is the unique premise to “The Invention of Lying.” The concept opens itself up to all kinds of situations.
The fact the plot could have been fleshed out more can’t be denied. But what is here is certainly worth a look.
Ricky Gervais, a modern-day Lou Costello, is a historical writer trying to find himself some female companionship.
The film opens as he starts a date with the luscious Jennifer Garner.
It appears not only do the people in this world always tell the truth, they can’t keep their mouths shut to avoid inappropriate comments either.
So when Gervais’ character, Mark, shows up for a date, the Garner character tells him he interrupted her performing a rather personal act on herself. She also informs him she is way hotter than he and it is doubtful they will sleep together. While he sits down, she goes back upstairs and says she will finish that personal act, but will try to do it quietly so he doesn’t notice.
So there’s lots of openings for great comedy and often it works. In the restaurant, the waiter tells Garner’s character she is way hotter than her date. When he brings drinks, he admits taking a sip.
The truth and nothing but the truth results in a different world than we are used to. For example, movies have to be absolutley the truth. That means every film is based on real events and consists of an elderly man describing an historical event.
Well, Mark’s life isn’t going too well. No, he doesn’t get to sleep with Garner and after everyone tells him at work he will probably be fired, he is.
The next morning, his landlord tells him to pack up and leave, because he hasn’t paid his rent.
Mark goes down to the bank to take out his last $300, not enough to pay the rent. But the computers are down. Since nobody lies, the teller asks Mark how much he wants from his account.
Suddenly we see his brain. Something is happening to it. He lies and declares he needs $800.
Ah, but the bank system starts operating again and the clerk sees he only has $300. So what does she do? She gives him the $800 and tells him the computers aren’t working correctly, because they show he only has $300.
Ah, Mark has hit upon something. He starts telling friends wild stories and they believe them all. He gets a kick out of it.
And when his mother lies dying in a nursing home, he decides to comfort her by painting this rosey picture of the afterlife. He literally invents heaven.
Trouble is, the doctors and nurses hear this tale. News services pickup up the story of this pudgy guy describing the hear-after.
The next morning, he opens the door and as far as the eye can see, is lined with people. Everyone has a question about the afterlife.
As Mark tries to answer their questions, the lies get bigger and bigger. But no matter how wild, everyone immediately agrees.
Part of the humor comes from the fact there are no words for terms like “liar” and “truth.” Until Mark’s “invention,” there was no need.
Gervais, with his British accident, is able to carry the part. Rob Lowe is great as a co-worker who tells Gervais he is going to woo and marry the Garner character.
The film has underlying themes about truth and people and religion. It has its share of laughs and frankly, I’d like to see a better-written sequel, returning to this same world because there is so much humor that can be mined from the premise.
How about a story on the troubles ensued when everyone is compelled to be truthful no matter what? Don’t even go into the idea of people lying.
That’s a better idea. It’s a premise I came up with. No, I’m not lying.

THE INVENTION OF LYING
• Directed and written by Ricky Gervais and Matthew Robinson
• Rated PG-13 for language including sexual material and drug reference
• Runtime: 99 minutes
• 3 stars out of 4

Whip It

Page film ‘Whip It’ a fun romp

ELLEN PAGE in “Whip It.”

It comes off as a bit far-fetched.
A petite 17-year-old with a pushy mother who finds herself in a myriad of beauty pageants decides what she really wants to do is join a roller derby team.
Huh? OK. It isn’t too realistic. But heck, the ride is still pretty fun.
Perky Ellen Page by herself is almost enough to make you want to see a movie. She’s so darn cute and you immediately pull for her in any plot.
So she’s in the mall with mom Brooke Cavendar (Marcia Gay Harden), buying new shoes, when in comes a herd of roller derby chicks, passing out leaflets, advertising their latest contest.
Now this roller derby league is a real by-the-seat operation. The building they play in is dilapidated. It regularly exceeds capacity, prompting a raid by the local fire department.
The film is directed nicely by Drew Barrymore, who is a fellow member of the Roller Derby team. She’s Smashley Simpson. Perhaps because of her directing, you see less of Drew than in most movies.
Somehow, little Page, whose name in the film is Bliss Cavendar, makes the team. Her ‘player’ name is Babe Ruthless. Other players include Juliette Lewis as Iron Maven, Kristen Wiig as Maggie Mayhem and others with monikers like Rosa Sparks and Eva Destruction.
TV host Jimmy Fallon plays ‘Hot Tub’ Johnny Rocket, the zany announcer and Andrew Wilson is the coach. Fallon appears to ad-lib a series of wisecracks in his game commentary and after an event, holds up a sign that he is available and STD-free.
The team is named the Hurl Scouts and each season, members resign themselves to last place. They get pushed and hammered and slammed, but they always come out on the bottom.
Page, who was 22 when the film was made, can easily play a 17-year-old high school student, lies and tells the team she is, well, 22.
Somehow, with help of a friend, she makes the rather lengthy trek to Austin for practices and games. She lies to her mother and father, saying she is practicing for her SATs when she is actually practicing Roller Derby. Well, close.
You have to suspend belief here.
She gets away with it and the team actually uses some of the plays put together by its hapless coach.
So with fast and feisty Babe Ruthless on the team, they have a chance at the championship.
But a raid because of too many people in the building causes a turn for the worse.
Her clueless parents learn Bliss, or Babe, isn’t really so studious.
But hey, fooling mother isn’t anything new. Her husband, played by Daniel Stern of “Home Alone” and “Breaking Away” fame, has told her for years he’s working on a big contract when he’s sitting in the family van watching football.
A sidestory really doesn’t go anywhere involving a boy in a mediocre rock band. In a throw-away scene, they sneak into a building and Bliss strips to her underwear while swimming underwater.
The finale is pretty special, although by now a bit less Fallon would have been better. Yes, shock of shock, Bliss or Babe, does get to participate in the final game. It is a doozy and her biggest fan turns out to be dear old dad.
Isn’t that usually the case?
“Whip It” isn’t nearly as good as “Juno” or “Hard Candy” but Page brings her fresh-scrubbed persona to his gritty role and it really works.
There are interesting characters, like the single-mother player, that make for nice sidetrips as the plot follows the main path.
There’s thrills, there’s chills, there’s fun in “Whip It.” So whip out some cash and rent it.


WHIP IT • Directed by Drew Barrymore • Written by Shauna Cross, who wrote the novel and does the screen play • Runtime: 111 minutes • Rated PG 13 • 3 stars out of 4

Sentence of Death / The Night America Trembled

JAMES DEAN starred in "Sentence of Death" in August 1953.

James Dean seen in rare TV appearance

If you are a fan of movie star James Dean, you probably think of “East of Eden,” “Giant” and “Rebel Without A Cause.”
He was an up and coming actor when an automobile accident cut his life short at the tender age of 24.
But before his three career-molding films, Dean did a heck of a lot of television that is largely forgotten.
One of his TV appearances, on “Westinghouse’s Studio One” is available on DVD. “Sentence of Death” has him playing a young man who is unfairly charged and convicted in the murder of a drug store owner.
The show aired live in August 1953. For the uninitiated, “Studio One” and similar programs were presented live. Cavernous studios had various sets assembled and numerous cameras. The director would go from the drug store set to police headquarters to a bar, to an apartment hallway and an apartment.
The lovely Betsy Palmer, long before she starred in the first “Friday the 13th” movie or before she was a regular game show panelist, played a rich society girl who decides for laughs to slum it at a neighborhood drug store.
She orders a ham sandwich and decides to invite her friends to join her. They would all order ham sandwiches and laugh at how the other half lives.
Except while in the phone booth, a man walks into the store, kills the shop owner and steals money from the cash drawer.
The victim’s wife and an elderly couple identify the Dean character as the killer and he is convicted and sentenced to death.
Palmer’s character, at first obnoxious and care-free, gets a conscious when she sees the man she believes did the killing at a bar. It isn’t Dean.
This is a compelling and well-acted presentation. It is available to us today only because someone placed a film camera in front of a television and recorded the program. So the quality isn’t the best, but it is more than viewable.
You wonder how such an undertaking could be so well-executed week after week. It is almost like filming a movie live and watching it as it is put together.
On the same DVD is “The Night America Trembled.”
If you ever wondered how America could misinterpret a radio play about Martians invading Earth for the real thing, this live dramatization will help. It happened in the 1930s in Orson Welles’ “War of the Worlds.”
We see the radio studio, complete with orchestra and actors doing the show. Among the radio actors is a young Ed Asner, later Lou Grant and the voice of the Best Picture nominated “Up.”
John Astin, later to be Gomez Addams on “The Addams Family,” plays a newspaper writer.
The play jumps from the studio to a home where a girl is baby-sitting while being frightened out of her wits by the radio show. We see a bunch of guys listening from a bar. We see a guy at a bus station use all of his money for a ticket to get as far away from the “Martians” as possible.
Each set used, each street scene, had to be constructed. Scene switching had to be timed flawlessly.
What is so sad is that CBS burned many of the films of these programs, called kinescopes, to make more room for other things in the storage areas.
How short-sighted. If you rent these two programs, make sure you watch them with commercials. You will learn about the Westinghouse frost-free refrigerator, which gets rid of the ice and even the evaporating water.
Or check out the new Westinghouse clothes washer, at that time called a “Laundromat.”
I have reviewed other “Studio One” episodes before and they are all tremendous efforts and you will see tons of well-known actors when they were starting out.
Televisions may have been cruder in 1953, but programming was more sophisticated.
STUDIO ONE: SENTENCE OF DEATH / THE NIGHT AMERICA TREMBLED • Filmed in black and white with interactive menus • Suitable for all • 4 stars out of 4

Everybody's Fine

DeNiro learns about family in ‘Everybody’s Fine’

ROBERT DeNIRO and Drew Barrymore in "Everybody's Fine."

I really don’t understand why “Everybody’s Fine” didn’t get for a Best Picture nomination this past year..
This is a heartfelt, emotional slice-of-life picture with Robert DeNiro starring as an aging, retired widower trying to stay in touch with his children.
DeNiro is the mild-mannered every dad whose wife recently died. Their four children are grown and live in far-flung areas of the country. Wife kept the family going and shielded DeNiro’s character, Frank Goode, from the bad stuff.
Frank placed coatings on telephone utility lines in a factory and breathing in the fumes caused lung damage. The telephone theme is used extensively in the film, as three of the children talk amongst themselves.
The film opens with Frank sweeping the floors, doing the dishes, dusting, mowing, all of the domestic chores.
He’s also getting ready for his four children to come for a visit. The grocery store steaks on sale aren’t good enough for his kids. Frank wants something better.
He buys a $600 grill that lets just enough oxygen in to burn the fat on the meat.
He wants a special wine so he asks the clueless clerk what to buy. “We have Italian wines from all over Europe,” the clerk replies.
Ah but slowly each child comes up with a lame excuse for not coming home for the big event.
Each has his or her secret and one of the kids, an artist, is in a Mexican hospital, being held by police on drug charges.
When the kids don’t come to Frank, Frank decides to head out by bus to visit them. His children work hard to make it look like each is successful and everybody is fine, thus the title.
The visits are supposed to be a surprise. He ends up at the apartment of his artist’s son, not knowing he is in bad shape in Mexico. After a couple of days with the son not showing up, he’s off to visit a daughter, played by Kate Beckinsale.
Her character, Amy, is a high-powered advertising executive. She lives in a beautiful house with a moody son and supposedly a driven husband.
Frank wants to say awhile, but Amy offers excuses as to why he cannot and off he goes to the next child, musician Robert, played by Sam Rockwell. He’s one of the most forthright of the children. Frank thinks he’s the conductor of an orchestra. Robert is merely a percussionist. It’s an easy job, less stress, he likes it, he tells Dad. Frank is disappointed but wants to stay a few days. Robert lies and says he’s heading to Europe that night. He just can’t stand the idea of hanging with Dad.
Throughout the film, those buzzing phone lines are a character, as the kids talk amongst themselves, planning how to handle Dad and keep him from knowing about the brother in Mexico.
Drew Barrymore plays Rosie. She lets Dad think she is a successful dancer in Las Vegas. She meets him in a stretch limo and takes him to her supposed huge, elite apartment.
But Frank isn’t stupid. He questions these stories.
This time he decides to cut short the visit and fly home. Frank doesn’t like to fly and a would-be mugger crushed his medication. On the plane, Frank has a heart attack and figures out the truth while talking to his offspring when they were children in a dream sequence while he is in a coma.
We are used to seeing DeNiro in bigger-than-life roles. But he plays the common man very well.
This is an excellent, realistic story about potentially real people and how they conduct their lives.
These are people you can relate to. Great story, great actors. It’s well plotted. Well put together. Well worth pursuing.

EVERYBODY’S FINE
• Runtime: 99 minutes • Rated PG-13, some language • 4 starts out of 4

Jaws

It’s summer, a good time to revisit ‘Jaws’

ROBERT SHAW (left), Roy Schieder and Richard Dreyfuss in the original “Jaws.”

“Jaws” is a watershed film in many respects, something we sort of take for granted today. Yeah, ‘watershed’ is a bit of a pun.

Based on the Peter Benchley novel, it’s the story of a New England town, Amity, terrorized by a great white shark.

The film was released 35 years ago and spawned plenty of inferior sequels. In fact, one sequel was ahead of its time, it was “Jaws 3-D.”

But the original “Jaws” shows what can be done when ingenuity and imagination get together because computer generated images weren’t available yet.

“Jaws” was the first summer blockbuster, marketed for the season.

Director Steven Spielberg had a difficult time creating a really scary shark in 1975, so his people opted to do many scenes scaring the audience by showing the effects of the big fish without showing it.

It was a big film for Roy Scheider, who played Police Chief Martin Brody; Richard Dreyfuss, who was played college know-it-all Matt Hooper; and Robert Shaw, who was the grizzled sea captain with many stories to tell, Sam Quint.

The story was fairly predictable. It was the journey that was exciting.

It became popular in an era of disaster films like, say, “Towering Inferno,” released the year before.

In “Inferno,” firefighter Paul Newman warns about potential problems because the new, fancy high-rise was built shortcutting the building code.

Tsk, tsk, don’t worry, the bigwigs say.

“Jaws” opens with a young maiden running along the beach drunk, jumping into the water, only to become fish food. But like a polite nibbler, the shark didn’t eat everything. He left a little something to wash up on the beach.

So the chief wants to close the beaches, but the mayor says tsk tsk, don’t worry. All will be well.

In both movies and so many others, the results turn out any way but well.

That’s the trouble with disaster films. Public officials are too optimistic and are looking out for the bottom dollar.

“Jaws” does a wonderful job of building suspense, sometimes because of false starts. Oh, it is just kids wearing fake shark fins.

But there are so many instances as the familiar music starts and despite our best efforts, we jump and gasp at onscreen antics.

Doggone, the film just exudes summer.

People lying in the sun relaxing. Kids splashing and having fun all day in the water.

The perfect antithesis for the foreboding phantom of the water.

Early in the film the townspeople are excited because they believe they have captured the dastardly devil of the deep. Those fools, they should have realized it was too early in the film for it to be the real culprit.

No, we need a few more severed limbs and splashes of red in the water to get everyone focused on solving the problem.

The film goes from disaster film to buddy / disaster picture in the final quarter. The Dreyfuss, Scheider and Shaw characters set out in the Shaw character’s crusty boat after the great offender.

The filmmakers dodge a real cliché here by making the salty Shaw and nerdy Dreyfuss bond, swapping stories about their adventures at sea, punctuated by battles with their oversized menace.

It is here where the Scheider character actually sees the creature and open-mouthed declares, “We need a bigger boat.”

The film has been re-released to theaters at various times and is readily available on DVD, as are the far inferior sequels.

The original film had such an impact, it kept people off the beaches.

Sure you’ve seen it before. But take the plunge. Watch it again.

JAWS

• Directed by Steven Spielberg

• Written by Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb

• Runtime: 124 minutes

• 4 stars out of 4

Zombieland

WOODY HARRELSON (holding the bat) and Jesse Eisenberg are attacked by a zombie in a supermarket in "Zombieland."

Gore, violence and fun in ‘Zombieland’

Let’s admit it. Zombies are cool.

And there’s many things cool about “Zombieland.”

For one thing, it has a real sense of humor.

It’s also pretty gross and gory.

It’s flippant and funny and irreverent.

It also doesn’t take any of the plot time determining how the vast majority of the world’s population has become zombies.

It started with a mad cow-like disease that causes peoples’ brains to swell and causes them to go berserk. That’s it. That’s all you need to know.

Jesse Eisenberg is Columbus. It’s not actually his name. Every character in the film is nicknamed by where he or she is from. Jesse’s character is from Columbus, Ohio.

The film opens with Columbus narrating. He tells us he’s learned to survive in a world full of screaming, vicious, blood-spewing zombies.

He explains when killing a zombie, hit or shoot them twice, to make sure they are dead. Always make sure you have an escape plan. Don’t be a hero.

Columbus tells how he first learned about the zombies. His sexy neighbor knocks on the door, scared because this mysterious person chased and tried to bite her. Nerdy Columbus can’t believe his good fortune. The frightened beauty falls asleep on his shoulder on his couch.

Ah but soon she awakens as a crazed zombie, vomiting blood all over poor Columbus. The guy can’t get a break. He’s able to kill the first of many zombies he will dispatch in this film.

On the road, Columbus meets up with Tallahassee, played by Woody Harrelson. They hook up, looking for the fabled region of the country where there are no zombies.

Harrelson’s character says those living in the East say the Zombieless area is in the West and vice versa.

Columbus hopes maybe Columbus is free of zombies.

Harrelson is on a quest for Twinkies. So the pair stop at a zombie-infested supermarket where they have to kill zombies before they can shop.

There they meet up with Wichita, played by Emma Stones, and her 12-year-old sister, Little Rock, played by Abigail Breslin, who seems to be everywhere these days.

The weakest point of the film is there’s not a whole lot of plot. They stumble into a Beverly Hills mansion searching for what they can find.

Lo and behold, it belongs to actor Bill Murray. What happens there is not only bizarre but pretty funny.

The girls decide they want to attend a local amusement park. Although not open, all of the rides still work and the two girls figure out how to operate each one.

When they show up, huge numbers of zombies appear, licking their chops.

Let me tell you, they hired the ugliest extras ever or there were truckloads of makeup artists on the set of this film.

It was a fun diversion and a must for zombie lovers. The gore abounds but there is so much of it, you get numb to it.

So grab your munchies and get ready for a gorefest.

As an aside, I saw this film in the Blu-Ray format, using a version of BD Live called movie IQ. What that means is if you have your player hooked to the Internet, you can get interesting information about the film when an icon appears in the upper right of the TV screen.

Don’t bother with this option. When the icon appears, we simply get a rehash of who these actors are and something about the location of the screening.

After the icon appeared a few times, I decided it wasn’t worth pushing the button and ignored it the rest of the film.

ZOMBIELAND

• Directed by Ruben Fleischer

• Written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick

• Rated R for horror violence¼ gore and language

• Runtime: 88 minutes

• 2 1/2 stars out of 4

Coco Avent Chanel

Chanel’s life interesting, film boring

AUDREY TAUTOU in "Coco avant Chanel."

OK, I like autobiographical films.
The one on Harry Truman, portrayed by Gary Sinise, was shown on HBO years ago and I bought the video and can watch it any time.
But there’s been a few recent efforts that left me, well, pretty unmoved.
I caught “Amelia” the other day, about the famous aviator Amelia Earhart. She was a renowned pilot, had many lovers and disappeared mysteriously. Yet the filmmakers were still able to make her life a bore.
But it towers over “Coco Avant Chanel,” the biography of Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel, the famous fashion designer.
It starts promising enough, with Gabrielle living in an orphanage. Now films that start in orphanages are usually pretty good. That coupled with it being a biography should make it a real winner.
But somehow despite opulent mansions, nightclubs filled with prostitutes and lots of singing and dancing, this thing is dull, dead in the water.
Coco is played by the usually perky Audrey Tatou. Everybody liked her in “Amelie,” she was so darned precocious and fun.
But somehow, director Anne Fontaine makes Tatou seem plain and uninspiring, right from the start.
Early in the film, we see Coco and sister, Adrienne, played by Marie Gillain, signing novelty numbers in a cabaret, where they must keep pointing out that “the hookers are over there.”
She meets up with rich playboy Etienne Balsan, played by Benoit Poelvoorde. You can sense she doesn’t care for him, but when they lose their jobs and sister decides to marry a rich nobleman, she really has nowhere to go.
So she ends up at the door of Etienne’s sprawling mansion, providing sex for a roof over her head and something to eat.
But after awhile Etienne tells Coco she needs to leave. Coco agrees to go but remembers, oh yeah, she has nowhere to go, so she stays.
Ah, so you can see how she became a famous fashion designer. Right? Well, no.
Did I mention she rode horses even though she didn’t know how to ride a horse? No, that doesn’t really qualify someone as a fashion designer.
She is so bland and the movie offers little insight into this woman. Despite being so plain and lifeless in this film, rich and lazy Etienne wants to marry her. But she won’t marry any man. In fact, she likes girls, too.
But you know what, even that touch fails to make her interesting.
She creates clothes that free women from their corsets and create comfort. Heck, they look like guys’ clothing.
She is credited with getting women out of 19th-century garb.
Fine, but it takes more than two hours for us to learn this.
So we see more of her life. She has friends. Some die.
Eventually we hit 1971 and we learn she died.
Good. Movie over.
Maybe the next biographical film will be better.
If I hadn’t let someone borrow my copy of “Amelie,” I’d watch that again.

COCO AVENT CHANEL • Directed by Anne Fontaine • Written by Fontaine and Edmone Charles-Roux • Rated PG-13 for sexual content and smoking • Runtime: 105 minutes • French with English subtitles • 2 stars out of 5

Bigger Than Life

Dad goes berserk in ‘Bigger Than Life’

JAMES MASON (far right) wants the best for his wife, played by Barbara Rush, in "Bigger Than Life."

Ed Avery was a junior high teacher in the 1950s.
He had a good rapport with the kids. He obviously enjoyed his job. But this is the 1950s. He didn’t make much money.
He certainly could not expect his wife to work, so he gets a second job at a taxi cab company.
But Avery’s world goes into more disarray when he suddenly has blackouts.
“Bigger Than Life” stars the great James Mason as Avery in this story of 50s family bliss that turns ugly.
That nonworking wife, Lou, is beautiful and wears a dress and earrings while working about the house. She is played by Barbara Rush.
Christopher Olsen plays their son, Richie.
Mason goes to a physician to find out why he is having the blackouts. The doctor discovers a rare disease and prescribes a steroid, cortisone, to treat him.
He becomes dependent on the drug and makes excuses to obtain extra prescriptions.
It quickly causes changes in his personality. At a parent-teacher conference, he lectures the shocked parents about what is wrong with their children, while lighting up a cigarette. Apparently even in the 1950s, you don’t light up in school.
At home his manic-depressive personality shows.
He wants his son to be more competitive in football and announces if he misses another catch, he won’t get lunch.
His actions and personality become more bizarre. His best friend and fellow teacher, Walter Matthau, is concerned as well.
The film has been compared with the more recent “The Shining,” in which Jack Nicholson and his family live in an isolated resort alone for the winter to handle routine maintenance. But Nicholson slowly descends into insanity.
In “Bigger Than Life,” Mason’s character gets more and more irrational. He demands to know why a glass of milk is missing from the pitcher.
When son decides to find the offending pills and dump them, Dad really gets angry. He quotes the Bible and comes to the shocking conclusion he must kill his son.
The movie was filmed in Cinemascope, a process requiring a larger screen and was designed to fight competition from the small screen, that being television.
The movie is decidedly 50s. Even when her husband acted bizarre, wife was respectful and agreeable because that’s what wives did. It was only when he got to the point maybe the child should die she decided he was a bit too unreasonable.
Today, a father who sits around the house wearing a bowtie would seem strange enough. In Mason’s world, it was perfectly permissible.
Special kudos goes to Christopher Olsen, playing the young boy who sees his father descend into madness. Olsen made several films but stopped acting in 1959 after a couple of episodes of “Lassie.”
As an aside, Marilyn Monroe was making “Bus Stop” on an adjoining stage at 20th Century Fox and appeared in a cameo as a nurse. But the scene was cut because the studio worried Monroe would use it as the second film she was required to do under her contract.
This is a gripping film worth watching, not just for the story and actors, but the overall tone and great 50s atmosphere.


BIGGER THAN LIFE • Directed by Nicholas Ray, written by Cyril Hume and Richard Maibaum • Not rated, too intense for young children • Runtime: 95 minutes • 3 1/2 stars out of 4

Obsessed

It’s not quite ‘Fatal Attraction’

IDRIS BELBA and Beyonce Knowles in “Obsessed.”

It’s not the most original concept for a movie.
And the ending leaves a LOT to be desired.
But come on, “Obsessed” isn’t that bad of a film.
This is almost a remake of “Fatal Attraction,” except no family pet gets cooked on the stove and the husband stays true to his wife. It’s just nobody believes him.
Idris Elba plays Derek, a likable vice president of a high-classed company who loves his wife, played in lackluster fashion by Beyonce Knowles.
He seems to have a great life. He has a beautiful wife, a 2-year-old son. He’s just moved into a cavernous house.
Among initial conflict in the film is, should they leave the mirror over the bed in the master bedroom?
On his way to his office one day, he finds himself alone in the elevator with a temporary employee, Lisa, played by the luscious Ali Larter.
They make small talk. She drops papers. He helps her pick them up. She flashes her eyes and her skirt.
After a day as a secretary, she becomes his aide for a week while the regular guy is out with a cold.
All seems fine except she seems too good to be true. She knows just what to do. She knows his routine. And was she listening in on his private conversation?
Now Derek’s wife had the aide position before the guy Lisa is filling in for.
Lisa smiles, she stops in the office. She gets the boss a bootleg of his favorite band.
The company Christmas party is coming up and it apparently is open to temp workers, but not spouses, even if they are former employees.
Derek uses the bathroom before going home, but is suddenly pushed into a stall by Lisa, who tries to seduce him. He runs out.
The next day, clad only in sexy underwear, she jumps into his car. He screams at her to get out.
Derek decides he better tell wifie about the events, but she feels down because her sister found out her husband was cheating. Derek decides that isn’t the best time to talk to her about Lisa.
Like in any cliché movie, Derek thinks Lisa is out of his life, but she never is.
When he goes on a retreat with his boss and fellow workers, there she is and this time she slips into his room and takes an overdose of drugs.
Wife learns about it and shows up at the hospital with Derek and a police detective, who takes an unusual interest in the case. Are there places police investigate for days suicide attempts?
Larter and Elba are pretty decent actors. They keep the suspense up and the drama flowing. Beyonce needs a little work in the believability factor.
But there are big problems. If Elba’s character acted smart like he is portrayed and reported her actions, the problems would have ended.
And the ending is not only stupid but it builds to a climax and then doesn’t really deliver.
All of the characters act like they are supposed to in order to advance the plot of a Grade B movie.
It isn’t terrible but another revision or two would have helped with “Obsessed.”

OBSESSED
• Directed by Steve Shill
• Written by David Loughery
• Runtime: 108 minutes
• Rated PG-13 for sexual material including some suggestive dialogue, violence and thematic content
• 3 stars out of 5

Dead Ringer

Film has twice as much Bette Davis

BETTE DAVIS with, well, Bette Davis in "Dead Ringer."

Bette Davis wasn’t what you would call a great beauty.
Sure she had her glamor roles, but what made her a star was she would take on any meaty role, even ones other actresses refused to take, because the roles didn’t fit their images.
And as Davis got older, she started to take the so-called ‘hag’ roles.
She did horror films like “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” and “Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte.”
Lesser known but a typical mid-60s romp was “Dead Ringer.”
This film was double the fun, because Davis plays twin sisters, Margaret DeLorca and Edith Phillips.
Nearly two decades before, Edith dated a wealthy man, Frank DeLorca. They planned to marry.
But at the last minute, Margaret announces she was pregnant with Frank’s baby. So Margaret marries the rich dude and Edith moves away.
But Edith eventually returns to Los Angeles and a few years later, attends Frank’s funeral. After 18 years, she reunites with her rich sister.
For the technology of the 60s, the scenes with the two Bettes work pretty well. Edith looks older, more wrinkly, more warn. She also smokes, while Margaret says she quit because of what it does to the skin.
Edith runs a money-losing, cramped nightclub where she employs young talent, even though she can’t afford to.
Edith learns from the chauffeur on the way out of the massive grounds of her sister that the couple never had a child. Uh-oh! Now Edith really hates her sister!
And gosh, if the two are twins, why don’t their names rhythm.? Margaret and Edith?
Anyway, so Edith is going to lose the bar because she hasn’t paid the rent. She dates a cop, played by Karl Maldin, who is in love with her.
So she gets a nifty idea. Lure her rich sister to the apartment above her nightclub, shoot her and make it look like a suicide. To be sure, leave a suicide note.
Then make authorities think Edith is dead, then Edith takes over Margaret’s identity.
You would think that would be a stretch for her to get away with it. But this was a 60s suspense film and there’s no DNA. She gets away with it.
There are some delicious twists and turns in this treat of a movie.
Malden finds himself drawn to Margaret, who is really Edith. Peter Lawford plays the young lover of Margaret, who becomes suspicious of this new Margaret.
So how did rich husband really die?
This was a worthy vehicle for Davis, who stayed a star until her final film, “The Whales of August.” She is also the star of the TV film “The Dark Secret of Harvest Home,” filmed in Kingsville and Conneaut.
It is filmed in crisp black and white and has that early 1960s feel to it.
The story is difficult to buy, but it’s still worth the ride.


DEAD RINGER • Directed by Paul Henried • Written by Albert Beich and Rian James • Runtime: 115 minutes • Too violence for young children, lots of period smoking • 3 stars out of 4

Dad's in Heaven with Nixon

‘Dad’s in Heaven’ great family documentary

TOM (left) and Christopher Murray from "My Dad's in Heaven with Nixon."

“Dad’s in Heaven with Nixon” is a documentary of a typical American family that is, well, not that typical.

Of course, you could argue any documentary about any family can’t be too typical.

First-time director Tom Murray chronicles his family in his first movie.

As you settle down to watch this movie, which includes a lot of grainy old family films from the 1920s to the 60s, you realize the narrative feels disjointed and uneven. Perhaps because it is the work of a novice filmmaker.

But by the time the movie is over, you discover his approach works pretty well.

Tom Murray comes from a big, somewhat well-to-do family that spent its summers on the beach at Long Island in the 1960s. Every day the kids tackled the waves, played on the beach, had a great summer.

They lived in their own beach house. And if you had checked 40 years before that, the Murray family then enjoyed the beach and beachouse, with Tom’s father as the youngest member of his family.

Hence all of the footage of children frolicking on the beach.

And we do get the obligatory family photographs of the so-called typical American family.

Ah, but wait, youngest brother Christopher, born in spring 1960, was deprived of oxygen as a child and developed more slowly than the rest.

He couldn’t walk until he was 16 months. He couldn’t speak until he was 4. He went to a parade of child psychologists and developmental specialists before he was diagnosed as autistic.

While there are other siblings, Christopher is on camera more as he stammers to get his point across. He’s friendly, he has a sense of humor. He doesn’t have an inferiority complex.

Their aging mother, Janice, spends her life working to make sure Christopher is independent and can live on his own when she dies.

So there we have it. The story of a unique family in which one sibling has autism. But brother, that isn’t the whole story.

Suddenly the perspective changes from to their father, Thomas E. Murray II, and then his father.

His father had dozens of patents dealing with electricity. He worked with Thomas Edison to get electricity into peoples’ homes. He was good friends with mayors and governors and other politicians. The family had money.

But Grandpa Murray also ignored Thomas E., the filmmaker’s father. When their father got home from a trip, the children lined up on the steps for a gift. But he told Thomas E. he was undeserving of a gift.

Grandpa Murray also drank from morning to night, dying of cirrhosis of the liver at a young age.

He left a mark on Thomas E. he could never lose. He was a failure at real estate. He was a failure on Wall Street. The family possessions disappeared to satisfy the debt.

And as the story of the family patriarch plays out, we suddenly find ourselves back to the story of Christopher.

Christopher has a measure of independence. He no longer lives in a group home. He can cook for himself. He knows how to take buses where he wants to go. He has jobs at a hospital and a grocery store.

But then we discover yet another talent of Christopher’s, as well as the origin of the title of the movie.

Suddenly it dawns: this young autistic boy who was given little change to succeed in the 1960s is more of a success than his bright father, more secure, happier.

And during it all, the filmmaker, Tom, the eldest brother, learns more about himself.

This is a monumental film anyone who has brothers and sisters can relate to. It is a story about a real American family
DAD’S IN HEAVEN WITH NIXON • Directed, produced and written by Tom Murray • 4 stars out of 5

Abraham Lincoln and The Struggle

Griffith sound films historically interesting

WALTER HUSTON is Lincoln in "D.W. Griffith's Abraham Lincoln."

D.W. Griffith invented what we see today as the modern movie.
Before Griffith, movies were short, as little as 10 minutes.
Mostly, film crews would go to busy areas or scenes of festivals or other events and figure out a story line from there.
But Griffith took the Thomas F. Dixon Jr. novel “The Klansman” and turned it into a 3-hour plus movie, complete with the first close-up (that of Lillian Gish), sprawling Civil War battle scenes and other epic events. A tremendous enterprise for 1915.
People literally fainted from the excitement of the film and movie history was made.
Griffith was born in 1875, a decade after the Civil War ended. A southerner, he listened to his father and uncles talk about fighting.
“Birth of a Nation” was controversial in the way it depicted African-Americans, even then and the way the Ku Klux Klan “rescued” the white women from the clutches of black people, who were actually whites in blackface, since blacks could not play major roles in movies.
By 1930, Griffith made two sound movies, one of which took him back to his Civil War roots, “Abraham Lincoln,” also known as “D.W. Griffith’s Abraham Lincoln.” The opening credits tell us it was “personally directed” by Griffith.
Walter Huston played Lincoln in this stagey picture. We see what appears to be vignettes of the man throughout his life, from his birth to his early days to becoming a lawyer and finally making it to the White House.
While hailed at the time, Huston portrays the 16th president as more of a country bumpkin who talks in folksy analogies that aren’t particularly witty.
As a young man, he falls for Ann Rutledge, played by Una Merkel.
Ann unfortunately dies, with Abe at her side, as the movie tells us. He must settle for zany Mary Todd Lincoln.
This is not a riveting look at Lincoln and blame it on early sound or my hearing, but I couldn’t always understand what was going on with the southern-drawl characters.
The most suspenseful part involved Lincoln’s assassination, which is meticulously done. But the DVD compares this assassination portrayal with the one Griffith did 15 years earlier in “Birth of a Nation.” Frankly, I thought the earlier, silent version was more realistic and better executed.
Besides the film on “Lincoln,” the same DVD has another film, “The Struggle.”
Griffith was 56 when he made this film and lived another 17 years, but this was his last movie. It bombed.
But “The Struggle” isn’t bad, better than the Lincoln film.
Hal Skelly plays Jimmie Wilson, a man in love who gets drunk and vows to his wife-to-be that he will never drink again. For a long time, he doesn’t.
But eventually he is prodded to imbibe. His wife and young daughter wonder where Daddy is. When he comes home, his daughter, played by Edna Hagan, says he looks sick and his breath smells funny. Hagan, by the way, is still alive, according to the Internet Movie Data Base.
Daddy keeps drinking, makes a fool of himself at an engagement party for his sister-in-law and pretty much ruins the family.
Eventually, they are kicked out of their apartment, with all of their belongings out on the sidewalk.
These are early talkies but Griffith brings a realism to them. For instance, as in real life, people talk over each other, interrupt each other. Before this, in early sound movies, the rule was to make sure the other actor was finished with what he was saying before you said your part.
“The Struggle” was panned as old-fashioned and seeing a movie about misery certainly wasn’t something people were jumping for during the Great Depression.
It was pulled from theaters in many instances in less than a week.
Griffith worked on other people’s films on and off until his death in 1948.
“Abraham Lincoln” and “The Struggle” aren’t compelling cinema but historically interesting. These were the father of modern cinema’s only sound movies and they are conveniently on one DVD.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN
• Directed by D.W. Griffith
• Written by John W. Considine Jr., adapted by Stephen Vincent Benet
• Runtime: 96 minutes
• Not rated, OK for all audiences but kids will be bored
• 2 stars out of 4

THE STRUGGLE
• Directed by D.W. Griffith
• Written by John Emerson and Anita Loos
• Runtime: 87 minutes
• Not rated, intense for some children
• 2 1/2 stars out of 4

Best of Youth

‘Best of Youth’ long but worth watching

JASMINE TRINCA, Lugi Lo Cascio and Allessio Boni in "The Best of Youth."

“La meglio gioventu” is a sprawling saga of two brothers in Italy and how their lives take different paths.
Known in English as “The Best of Youth,” it is a lengthy 360 minutes divided over two DVDs.
The story starts in 1966 and focuses on brothers Nicola and Matteo Carati (played by Lugi Lo Cascio and Allessio Boni.)
Nicola is finishing medical school while Matteo is still taking classes.
Nicola gets a part-time job taking a pretty mental patient for walks. She’s played by Jasmine Trinca.
When they see signs Jasmine has been the victim of electric shock therapy, Nicola goes to the mental hospital, wakes her up and convinces her to come with him.
The brothers decide to take her to her father.
Her father can’t take her in and decides to take her back to the mental hospital but Nicola intercedes. Unfortunately, all does not work out well with the young mental patient and she ends up in the institution again.
It is the beginning of the six-hour saga that celebrates friends and family via the backdrop of the world from the 60s to the new millennium.
Along the way, Nicola meets Giulia, who loves music and the piano, but is also a rebel who ends up on the run. The two have a daughter, who Nicola has the responsibility of rearing.
Matteo eventually becomes a police officer who starts a relationship with a photographer.
Nicola becomes a psychiatrist.
Nicola does his best to raise the daughter while her mother is on the lam.
The tumultuous lives of all of the friends and family, coupled with the beautiful scenery in Italy and the backdrop of the various eras makes for compelling viewing.
It almost reminds you of a sprawling John Jakes novel transplanted from 18th or 19th century America to 20th century Italy.
The plot actually takes a backseat to the sheer power of the personalities of the main character as generation produces generation.
Both brothers try to find and define themselves. One at least is moderately successful. The other sees his life end tragically.
The film ends on a positive note with great reconciliation and a wedding. Life goes on, even when the camera stops
It is a film of great beauty that celebrates the arts at times and denotes tremendous brutality at others.
But “The Best of Youth” is worth the investment. The film is available for rent on two discs through, among other outlets, Netflix.

LA MEGLIO GIOVENTU
• Directed by Marco Tullio Giordana
• Written by Sandro Petraglia and Stefano Rulii
• In Italian with English subtitles
• Rated R for language and nudity
• Runtime: 360 minutes
• 3 1/2 stars out of 4

T.A.M.I. Show

‘T.A.M.I.’ show fun to watch four decades later

JAMES BROWN set the stage on fire during the "TAMI" show in 1964.

“The T.A.M.I. Show” is oh, so dated to watch.

But parts of it will have you glued to your TV screen.

It’s considered one of the most important musical concerts ever.

Held at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on Oct. 28 and 29, 1964, it was recorded on something called Electronovision, an early high-definition video camera and was later converted to film, well, not much later.

The concert was released in movie theaters on Dec. 29, 1964, a mere two months later!

T.A.M.I. stood for Teenage Awards Music International and if you don’t like that, it also meant Teen Age Music International.

It was hosted by Jan and Dean and included the Supremes, The Beach Boys, Chuck Berry, James Brown and his Famous Flames, Marvin Gaye, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Lesley Gore, Billy J. Kramer and The Dakotas, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles and the Rolling Stones before they were really well known in the U.S.

The Beach Boys segment was excised from the film earlier on, but is back for the new DVD, just recently released.

Most acts are accompanied by screaming kids and go-go dancers who act like they have been given chocolate and coffee IVs for a week before the concert.

The dancers include future singer Toni Basil and future actress Teri Garr.

The DVD extras include director John Landis commenting on the trailers. He was in junior high school and was given free tickets to the event.

Lesley Gore was the biggest act of the show, at least according to Landis. She became a star at 16 singing “It’s My Party.”

Chuck Berry and Gerry and The Pacemakers played dueling songs. (Berry won.)

Jan and Dean actually did some sidewalk surfacing during an obvious lyp synced-version of “Sidewalk Surfing.”

The film is significant in an historical sense in that there were great racial barriers, especially in the South in 1964.

Yet African-American talents freely associated with white artists. You see white go-go dancers slithering around black artists like Gaye and Berry. It would seem that would cause a stir in the South.

The music is very engaging but the highlight is a mouth-dropping performance by James Brown. How in the world did that man make his legs do that?

Brown, who refused to practice beforehand, twirled across the stage on one foot in such a fashion you would think he was partially animated. Absolutely amazing!

He was followed by the Rolling Stones. A young Mick Jagger tried his best moves, but they paled in comparison to Brown.

It is interesting that this was filmed during the relatively brief period in which Stones bassist Bill Wyman harmonized in backup vocals with guitarist Keith Richards.

It must be something to have been one of those screaming kids panned by the cameras, watching the show today. Even the youngest concert goers would be approaching 60 today.

This was a time before big money was involved. While Berry refused to go on until he was paid in cash, the Four Seasons refused the gig because they wanted $45,000.

The opening theme song, sung by Jan and Dean, erroniously stated the Rolling Stones were from Liverpool. Um, that would be the Beatles, who were NOT on the bill. The Stones were from London, thank you.

This is a compelling time capsule of a period when all kinds of musicians from all genres could come together for an incredible show.

The film is so important, it was named to the National Film Registry by the U.S. Library of Congress in 2006.

No matter your age, this film is worth checking out. You will never forget James Brown’s performance. Trust me.

The T.A.M.I. Show

• Directed and written by Steve Binder

• Run time: 123 minutes

• Fine for any age

• 4 stars out of 4